Biofuel Circle begins supplying organic manure to farmers, taps wastelands for energy products
Biofuel Circle, a five-year-old company that has launched a unique farm-to-fuel ecosystem connecting farmers, has launched a project to provide farmers with carbon-rich organic manure and two pilot projects to produce energy products on wastelands, the startup’s co-founder and CEO, Suhas Baxi, said.
The Pune-based company will increase the number of biomass banks that it has established to tackle stubble burning from the current 60 to 106 by the end of the current financial year, he told businessline in an online interaction.
“We are getting carbon-rich organic manure for farmers from companies which use biomass. Some customers use biomass to convert it to biogas. Some use it to convert it to biochar. What we essentially do is we are creating a reverse supply chain,” he said.
Getting circular economy going
Biofuel Circle is taking biochar and fermented organic manure or carbon-rich organic manure back to the farmers. This will help increase the fixed carbon percentage in the soil, help increase the water retention capacity in the soil and reduce the chemical fertiliser consumption. “So, from our perspective, getting this circular economy bit going is a focus area for us right now,” said Baxi.
The company has embarked upon two projects currently on this. One is in Uttar Pradesh, and the other is in Maharashtra (Nagpur).
“We are also working on very efficient soil testing kits for the farmers. We are also working on mechanisms for farmers to realise over a period of time what exactly their gain has been,” he said.
On the pilot projects to produce energy products from wasteland, the Biofuel Circle co-founder and CEO said the company is looking at non-farmlands and wastelands in rural areas. The pilot projects, which have been carried out for the past six months, are being carried out in Maharashtra and Odisha, where napier grass is being cultivated.
Connecting 1.5 lakh farmers
The company will work further on the projects based on the feedback from the current trials.
Biofuel Circle has currently set up 60 biomass banks, with 25 being added in the past six months. “We will be increasing the number from 60 to 106 by the end of March (2026), which will cover over 1,000 villages,” he said.
Each biomass bank connects at least 2,000 farmers. It will mean that over 2 lakh farmers will be covered by the end of the current fiscal. “At the moment, we are at 1,50,000 farmers. So purely from a point of view of numbers, I think we’ve been able to achieve a significant objective of spreading the network of biomass banks. Each one of these farmers has a choice of not burning their biomass in the field and selling it to us,” said Baxi.
The biomass banks have 5,000 tractor-driving partners, who can earn ₹1.5-4.5 lakh a year. “The ecosystem we have created using biomass banks, purely from a point of view of financial impact, has caused a very good financial impact,” said the Biofuel Circle co-founder and CEO.
Impact of biomass banks
These 106 biomass banks would be able to transport over 10 lakh tonnes of biomass. That’s 1.3 million tonnes of annual carbon dioxide replacement. The impact of biomass banks is social as it creates employment and entrepreneurship opportunities in rural areas. The other impact is that it helps the environment as it saves the usage of fossil fuels.
“Last but not least, it provides farmers an effective way to handle what used to be an end-of-season problem. The biomass bank has been an impactful intervention from our side,” he said.
Biofuel Circle’s biomass banks function in Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Goa and Andhra Pradesh. Over the next five years, the company plans to handle at least 10 per cent of the country’s biomass. A few more States will be added this fiscal to achieve this target.
Mulling franchises
“We would want to make sure that through our supply chain, more than 10 per cent of this biomass is harnessed. Through that, we will be in a position to not just cause an impact on the rural side, but we will be in a position to have more than 30 million tonnes of annual carbon footprint reduction,” said Baxi.
Biofuel Circle is currently a supply chain and sales partner in the compressed biogas sector on the fermented organic manure or carbon-rich manure side. It is looking at opportunities to make sure that additional value is created, especially because it has the potential to generate energy.
The company plans to set up franchise manufacturing units for biomass processing in future for biomass pellets, briquettes and biochar. It plans to expand its presence in the soil nutrition business.
Here to stay
On the payment for farmers in supplying straw, he said they are currently getting paid a “small token amount” depending on the size of their farm and the quantity that they make available. “This is a small incremental additional income, but it takes away their worry with the straw,” he said.
On the transportation of the straw to the biomass banks, he said it functions like “an Uber model”, where farmers register on the company’s platform through its app or WhatsApp chatbox. The tractors, engaged by the company as service providers, aggregate the straw and transport it to the warehouse.
“At any point in time, we have up to 40 tractors engaged with our biomass bank as service providers and that takes care of our logistics. Currently, these tractors are working on diesel. Going forward, there are plans to use EV tractors,” said the Biofuel Circle co-founder and CEO.
Stating that biomass-driven economic activities are here to stay, Baxi said the company would love to engage with budding rural entrepreneurs.
Biofuel Circle raised equity for setting up the biomass bank network through impact funds and early-stage investors. “We recently completed our Series A round. We’ve also been able to access a certain amount of term loan. Both put together allow us to go forward with the ambitious plan that we have. We would be looking to raise funds once again next year,” said Baxi. .
Published on October 27, 2025
